Hip Cuisine

While on vacation in Panama City Panama, I decided to try one of the vegan restaurants, Hip Cuisine. It is located in the business district near the beach. It is one the second floor of a building among other cool businesses.

I ordered the Hamburguesa Vegetariana Hip sandwich for $12.00 (American dollars). The sandwich does not come with any sides so I order some vegetables. There is a chalkboard that has the message” Patient! good things take time.” I was a little confused when my order was given to me rather quickly.

The presentation was great, I hope you can see the photo. However, my first bite was a disappointment. The bun was cold in spots. Seems like the bun was frozen at one point and put in the refrigerator. The ingredients of the sandwich was not any better, it was less than warm. Sadly, I cannot recommend this restaurant.

I've been there 3 times and the place is cool and service is nice. The problem is that food needs imprvement. The first time I tried a wrap, it wasn't good, it was too tasteless. The second time I had a guacamole and same, small tasteless. 3rd time I just went to eat desserts and they were good, but sincerely I can get better vegan desserts for a better price in other places. Something I didn't like too much was that the people working there doesn't even know wich ingredients are vegan or not, and the place is not totally vegan but they are aiming to be a vegan friendly and healthy place so it's weird that they don't tell their staff about it. I asked if the chips were vegan and the cook told me no...I asked for the bag and the bag itself said they were vegan, and also checked on the ingredients and they were.

I had the spaghetti zucchini and it was excellent. Highly recommend. The smoothie with red beets (I forget the name) was very good too. But my date had a green smoothie that was weird and served in a bottle. I assume it was not made fresh...Recommend ordering something fresh.

The place is very nice, in a cool food court. Staff nice. I am very sorry to say that, but my dinner was very disappointing. My husband and I had spring rolls (10 dollars for 4 small pieces filled with basically just salad), the hip salad (so little and so basic), a veggie burger (awful, dry and tasteless) and a blueberry muffin (burnt and bitter!). I hate when people say vegan food is tasteless and sad, but places like this one make people think a vegan diet is poor. After dinner, I was still hungry and we paid 46 dollars to starve... Not recommended.